Carlos mentioned that they have held 23 flights so far with 709 veterans (the oldest being 99 years of age) making the trips to Washington, D.C. He also spoke of the Club's involvement to help fund the program as well as the Club's involvement in funding last week's Illinois Department of Transportation's student seminars on safety education for young people.

Gary then proceeded to introduce the past Golden Deeds winners in attendance. He then turned things over to Joe Bordewick who introduced Patty Adam's family who were in attendance. Gary then mentioned the numerous nominating letters that were received on behalf of our winner.

Cullan Duke, the chairman for the event, then introduced the members of the Golden Deeds committee (Rich Gengenbacher, Davis Adam, Gary Farha and Dave Rees). He then mentioned that this particular project started back in 1919 and is the longest running project of the National Exchange Club. In introducing our winner, Patty Adam, Cullan mentioned that this honor goes to a person who goes out of their way to make our community a better place to live.

Our winner then thanked the Exchange Club and the community for their generous support of Birthright over the years. Patty has been at Birthright 34 of the 41 years of its existence. She actually succeeded Billy Brod and Kathy Peters Druffel at Birthright and both of those ladies were previous Golden Deeds Award winners.    

Jared Haugh presented the Book of Golden Deeds keynote speech honoring our winner and did so with class and humor. He also mentioned his predecessor, John Tripp, who had handled the duties for years for the Club before his untimely death in 2009.